The 7:15 departure time might have scared off a couple of conference attendees, but 45 of us made the hour-long bus ride to Pro-Health & Fitness Center - Viera, and tours continue as I type. The upscale facility is beautiful, and seems well-designed from a functional standpoint - older members and rehab patients mix easily with middle-aged exercisers, with neither seeming out of place. The interior streetscape is designed to integrate people - it's mall-like, but I mean that in a good way. Different user groups that will be going their separate ways don't actually separate until they reach a central check-in desk, which does away with the threatening, face-the-doors desk of a lot of fitness centers, not to mention hospitals.

Dateline Chicago - A very hard-working group of panelists this year, the first in my 19 years of involvement in the Facility of Merit judging to require pushing back our dinner reservation to 9 p.m. They've lent credence to this photo, which an architect friend sent me years ago: